This invention relates generally to selecting and presenting targeted advertising information to a user based on an asset profile of the user""s computer.
The Internet is a worldwide collection of networks that spans over 100 countries and connect millions of computers. Reports indicate that the Internet is growing faster than all preceding information technologies including radio and television. The World Wide Web (xe2x80x9cthe webxe2x80x9d) is one of the fastest growing facets of the Internet and represents the computers that support the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), which is a common protocol for exchanging information.
Advertising on the web is growing rapidly. Estimates indicate that $1.5 billion was spent on Internet advertising worldwide in 1998 and that this amount will increase to $15.1 billion in 2003. On the web, as in traditional media, there are two widely recognized types of advertising-brand advertising and response-oriented advertising. Brand advertising is intended to generate awareness of and create a specific image for a particular company, product or service. In contrast, response-oriented advertising, or direct marketing, is intended to generate a specific response or action from the consumer after exposure to an advertisement. Response-oriented advertisers focus on the short-term benefit of advertising and seek to maximize the number of user responses per advertising dollar.
The web is particularly well suited for response-oriented advertising. Estimates indicate that spending on direct marketing on the Internet will reach $5.5 billion or approximately 65% of total Internet advertising spending in 2002. The web makes it easier for consumers to read and respond to an advertisement than traditional direct response media such as toll-free numbers or business reply cards. Also, measuring response rates, an essential element for response-oriented advertisers, is easier on the web than in traditional media.
In order to improve the effectiveness of advertising on the Internet, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for an improved system that is able to select and present targeted advertising information to a user via the Internet. There is a need for such a system that is able to select and present advertisement that has a high correlation to the user""s needs, behavior, and preferences, thereby increasing the probability of generating revenue from the advertising.
As explained in detail below, the invention addresses the above-described issues and is directed to presenting targeted advertising information to a user as a function of an xe2x80x9casset profilexe2x80x9d of the user""s computer. The asset profile is a set of information that identifies the software applications that are currently loaded on the computer and the current hardware configuration for the computer including a processor type and connected hardware devices. In addition, the asset profile contains usage information such as a frequency of use for the various software applications.
According to one aspect of the invention, targeted advertising is presented to a user during a web-based data archival process in which data is archived from the user""s computer to a remote storage area via the Internet. A web-based communication session is initiated between the user""s computer and a remote storage server and data stored on the user""s computer is transferred to the storage server and archived for future restoration of the user""s computer. In addition to backing-up data stored on the user""s computer, an asset profile of the user""s computer is generated and stored on the storage server. In one embodiment, the asset profile is generated via software executing on the user""s computer. In another embodiment, however, a portion of the asset profile, such as the usage information, is generated by the storage server.
According to the invention, advertisements are selected from an advertisement database based on the asset profile and are communicated to the computer for display to the user. Because of the detailed asset information obtained during the web-based data archival procedure, very targeted advertising information having a high correlation to the user""s behavior can be selected and presented to the user, thereby increasing the probability of generating revenue from the advertisement.